Jonathan and Jo identified supplies, setting them aside. The kiss lingered between them, making the regulated air feel alive with possibility.

"The town’s extraction lab had full mesh access," Jonathan said quietly, breaking the silence. His hands stilled on a crate of water purifiers. "The rest was deliberately analog - stone buildings, mechanical systems, paper records. The founders believed children deserve a choice about augmentation, that forcing neural interfaces on developing minds was..." he trailed off, searching for words.

Jo found herself drawn closer, not sure what he was saying. “How do you give children a choice?”

Jonathan's eyes lit with recognition. "Exactly. Cardinal Towne's founders saw parallels between authoritarian control and AI dependency." His voice carried the weight of personal experience. "They believed true consciousness required perceiving the world naturally, but that freedom of choice - was paramount. Overloading and extending senses without consent was a form of violence."

Without thinking, Jo reached for his hand. His fingers interlaced with hers immediately, as if drawn by some deeper recognition neither of them fully understood.

"I was eight when they removed my augments," he continued, his grip tightening slightly. "The web had already grown into my visual cortex. When they disconnected it... I lost all of my senses at once. Colors went flat, then blindness. Sounds muffled, then silence. I couldn't balance properly at first."

Jo squeezed his hand, feeling his pain. "Wait, why would they do that to you? Monsters!"

“Jo, you don’t understand,” he paused, “I chose.”

“How can an eight-year-old choose that, you were brainwashed by monsters,” her brow furrowed. She was squeezing his hand so tightly his fingertips turned white.

“No. Please listen,” he said, placing his other hand on top of hers gently. Her breathing calmed. She looked into his eyes and saw his warmth and gentleness. The same quality that had attracted her that same morning as they prepared for the race.

“I’m not doing a good job am I?” Jonathan asked with a laugh, relaxing them both further. She didn’t understand but his humor made it seem alright.

“Choice is sacred, and a child’s choice is the most sacred. The founders established it as a rule. But no, I was brought there as a young child. I was dying Jo, something had gone wrong with the implant, a dissonance in my brain. I was brought to the village. Like today, complications for standard citizens aren’t covered. Many children like me became disabled or died. Without Cardinal Towne, I would be… different. My choice, don’t you see?” Jonathan smiled again, his eyes watering with a distant look.

"What was recovery like?” she asked.

“About six months for me, but learning to truly see the world again... took years. In many ways, I’m still learning" A small smile touched his lips. "The community called recovery, 'The Returning.' Every person in the village supported children going through extraction. They would carefully listen and seek any sense the child possessed after extraction, and stimulate them. When hearing returned, story hours. When sight returned, drawing. Whatever natural senses we had were strengthened within the community. Our brains relearned natural perception."

His voice took on a distant quality, lost in memory. "There was a garden where we'd practice relearning basic movements. The older kids taught the younger - how to read wind direction from leaves, how to navigate by the stars, how to gauge distance without augmented measurement, how to recognize patterns in nature rather than relying on algorithmic analysis."

Jo listened, captivated by natural learning and children rediscovering natural abilities. "It must have been challenging."

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"It was. And terrifying. And beautiful. And necessary." Jonathan absently traced patterns on the supply crate. "The founders had this saying: 'Every interface is an intervention.' They believed each neural connection reshaped not just how children understood reality, but shaped reality itself. Allowing AI to mediate basic human experiences, we surrendered our ability to perceive truth directly, constantly a servant."

“That’s a bit much,” said Jo. “Our augments established great cities, continue to develop innovations that save people.”

“I know Jo, but it is difficult to explain. Actually, I don’t think I even could. Maybe this will help: as children we learn to draw, we listen and we perceive and then we draw. Everyone can become a realistic artist with practice, but many choose not to focus on their own path. But that is a choice. You can still go back and draw precisely without having AI generate it… choice. The taskmaster in our brain should learn how to support the artist's side, to keep perceiving, adjusting, and understanding.”

“I get some of that, I’ve felt it from you several times. I also work at it myself,” said Jo.

“Yes, I know. I’ve seen it in you too,” Jonathan said, looking at her gently. “I’m still not doing a good job. Augmentation doesn’t limit this directly but encourages societies to be built around limited choice, embedding it into the social structure itself. Anyway, that isn’t why I’m telling you this,” he said voice trailing off.

"The founders were really brilliant Jo," he continued carefully. "They understood both worlds - the automated and the natural. They allowed augmentation and they developed AI. However, they also created incredible protocols for staying hidden, appearing to comply with external expectations while maintaining and protecting their independence. Jo, to join we pledge to die for freedom. And if we leave, we are not held to it as it takes a community. Once pledged, the invitation remains open. We can always return.” Jonathan took a deep breath.

Jo felt strange. Jonathan’s descriptions reminded her of passages she'd read in her great-grandmother's notebooks - theoretical frameworks for resistance that now seemed far more practical than theoretical.

"What happened?" she asked gently. "Why did you leave?"

A tremor ran across his eyelid carrying echoes of old pain. "The AI got better at seeing our pattern. It started identifying statistical anomalies that should have been impossible to track. As if..." he hesitated, "as if it was trained on exactly how our systems would evolve. A direct attack. The community didn't run - it agreed to dissolve," he explained. "We scattered to seed new resistance cells across the grid. Groups of families traveled together with assigned roles as a piece of a larger pattern." His words carried a strange weight as if speaking to something beyond their immediate situation.

Jo stepped closer, drawn by an inexplicable sense of connection. "And your family's role?"

"To return to Veridian," he said softly. "To maintain our cover, to advocate for Natural rights, while others relocated. To watch, and wait, and be ready when..." he trailed off, his eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her breath catch.

"When what?"

"When patterns align again," he finished. "When the system dependencies unravel. We believe it is not a prediction, just an outcome of restricted choice." His gaze looked meaningfully to her pocket where the notebook rested.

Jo's band vibrated, and the others had arrived. She opened the door remotely seeing Marcus from the feed. Jo pulled Jonathan into a quick, fierce hug. "Thank you for trusting me with your story," she whispered. "We'll need to be careful how much we share with the others."

"Truth flows like water," he whispered into her hair. "Finding its own level."

She actually thought that was corny and also cute in an odd way. However, her mind shifted to the next steps.

"We’ll help them understand gradually. Lead by example rather than explanation," Jo said. This was not something she was prepared to share with others.

Footsteps grew louder. Jo squeezed Jonathan's hand one final time before stepping away. Their shared secret was in the air between them - connecting them like a bridge between past and present, between what was and what might be.

She touched her great-grandmother's notebook, its pages holding answers she didn’t know to seek. Sometimes, she realized, the greatest mysteries lie not in what remains hidden, but in what has been waiting to be understood all along.

"Right," she addressed the group with gentle authority. "Let's talk about how we move forward from here..."